


To Try Without You

by scheidswrites



Category: No Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheidswrites/pseuds/scheidswrites
Summary: The prompt was " Write a story about two people who care deeply for each other but who, for whatever reasons, move on and away from each other." Sorry in advance, but this one's a bummer.
Kudos: 2





	To Try Without You

The end of life as everyone knew it arrived in fits and starts. It crept, a small change at a time, and caught humanity as frogs in water. The day Isaiah realized his old life was gone for good was like waking from sleep in a strange place; foggy, disorienting, ripe with the weight of wrongness. 

His phone didn’t work. There had been no signal in days, but that hadn’t stopped him from checking it frequently, hopefully. He decided to walk to James’s apartment. He was his closest friend--his only real friend-- in the city. He left the phone behind, though his pocket felt too empty without it.

The city was quiet. Isaiah tried to think about how noisy it used to be. Traffic and honking, music, shouting, sirens...had it stopped all at once or faded out a bit at a time? He thought he would have remembered if it had cut out all of a sudden.

The elevator in James’s apartment building didn’t work, but then it usually hadn’t anyway. Isaiah started the long trek up to his friend’s unit, his footsteps echoing on the metal steps. Sometimes he could hear noises in the units he passed: the scuff of a footstep, murmured conversation, a muffled sob. He passed no one on the stairs. 

He knocked and waited for a while before James opened the door. His hair was a mess, face unshaved, clothes rumpled. He had deep bags under his eyes. When he saw Isaiah, he wrapped him in a desperate, clinging hug. Isaiah returned the hug, patting his friend’s shaking back. He felt numb, like maybe he still wasn’t fully awake. 

He stayed for a few days, sleeping on the couch. James was glad to have him there. He hadn’t much liked being alone in the best of times. When the power shut off, Isaiah returned briefly to his own apartment to pack some things and then came back.

They filled as many containers with water as they could, not knowing if or when the water supply might shut off too. They cataloged their food and meager supplies. And they waited. Mostly they did nothing at all. 

Sometimes they heard gunshots or shouting below in the streets. But that was rare. Common was the rush of the wind, the coo of pigeons, nothing at all. The end of the world was quiet.

James and Isaiah talked. There was nothing else to do. They spoke more than Isaiah thought he ever had to anyone. Any subject they could think of, no matter how trivial or personal. Sometimes they laughed until Isaiah’s face hurt and he couldn’t breathe. Sometimes they started arguing about something stupid to pass the time, or tried to regale one another with increasingly outlandish stories. Sometimes the conversation was casual, but Isaiah thought they could both feel the invisible weight hanging above them. It dragged pointless words from their mouths with the threat that, without speech, the silence of the end of things would come rushing in to fill the vacuum. 

As the days wore on and seemed to leach of their colors, and as the supplies steadily dwindled, more often than not when they spoke it ended in tears. Only rarely would one of them leave, to scour the husk of the city for food. Even rarer were the times when they returned with anything. It was good to have someone to cling to when you cried, Isaiah thought. He used to be so secretive with his tears, so embarrassed. It felt so hard now to remember why he had been worried about it. 

The temperatures dropped. Wind whistled through the cracks in the window frames. They huddled close together in James’s bed for warmth at night. They were both getting thin, rations strict, and staying warm was harder than it used to be. They moved to the couch during the days, if only for the change of scenery. 

Neither of them was really sure who initiated the kiss. They were so close, knew all each other’s secrets, hadn’t talked to another person in...neither of them had kept track of the days. It fell flat, in any case. They both agreed they’d never felt closer to anyone, but it was platonic. 

The days seemed shorter and duller. The nights were lasting longer, Isaiah was almost sure. Or maybe it was just the winter, the lack of artificial lights, the gray unchanging view of a city with the human bustle removed.

Isaiah tried to start keeping track of the days. James didn’t see the point and wanted no part of it. They wore through the months of winter and into what should have been spring. The temperature did increase and they slept slightly better. 

They moved to the couch less often. James started spending more days in bed, hardly moving. Conserving energy, he said, but Isaiah worried about him. And with the warmer temperatures should have come longer days, but they stayed in lengthy dark. It wasn’t just nighttime. It was something else. A dimmer switch being lowered on the world. 

Isaiah sat on one end of the bed as he told this to James, who lay curled in his usual spot. There was an old photo on the fridge of their group of friends, smiling together at a party. In it James’s face was round, his eyes bright, one arm slung over a friend’s shoulder with a beer dangling from his hand. The man looking back at Isaiah from below the blankets did not resemble that man anymore. 

They needed to speak much less than they used to. James saw the plan in Isaiah’s emaciated face before his friend said anything. 

“I can’t,” James said.

“Please, I want us to go. I can’t just sit around and starve if there might be something else out there. I’m worried it’s already too late.” Isaiah leaned towards his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

James moved his eyes away, back towards the ceiling. “It is too late,” he said. “It won’t be different anywhere else you go.” 

_You_ , not _us_. “I have to at least try. And I can’t try it without you.” There was a painful lump in his throat. 

James moved his eyes back towards Isaiah. He sat up slowly. The curves of his ribs were distinct under his shirt. He reached out a hand and Isaiah took it. His eyes burned with nascent tears. “This is my home,” James said. “This city has always been my home. I know you’d rather run or fight what’s happening, but...I feel like I’ve spent my whole life fighting. I’m ready for some peace.” 

“But--” Isaiah started to say, but James squeezed his hand. 

“It’s getting darker, right? Nighttime has always been my favorite. And in the end, maybe it’ll just feel like falling asleep. I wouldn’t mind that.”

The tears overflowed and ran down Isaiah’s cheeks. “I can’t just leave you behind,” he choked. James pulled him into a hug, and he buried his face in his friend’s shoulder. 

“You should do what you want. And this is what I want. If you made me go with you, I’d just slow you down anyway. You know I always hated hiking.” That did pull a small laugh out of Isaiah through his tears. 

They talked some more, argued, finally agreed. Then they held each other and cried and cried. None of it was good, none of it was fair. They wept at having to say goodbye, and at the way their lives were being stolen from them. The universe didn’t care about them, two specks on a planet slowly going dark, but that didn’t change the way Isaiah felt. His grief was so big, so deep and immediate, he should have been able to tear the universe apart and reshape it with his own hands. 

He couldn’t do that, but he could hold his friend, respect his wishes, say goodbye. In the morning, he packed his scant supplies. James insisted that he take all their remaining food, and Isaiah dutifully stacked it in his bag. 

When James walked to the other room for a moment, Isaiah removed a couple items and tucked them aside in the kitchen. For the sake of hope. Just in case he changed his mind.

James wanted to walk him down to the ground level, but Isaiah insisted he save his energy. They stood together in the apartment doorway. They kept leaning in for one more hug. There was always one more goodbye to give. The lumpy backpack pressed into Isaiah’s shoulders, and he felt the temptation to just set it down. He could just walk back inside and forget this whole thing. They could wait for the dark to carry them to sleep together. 

He shook his head and pulled away from their last hug. Tears spilled from his eyes again. James didn’t try to wipe the tears from his own face, the last time Isaiah looked at him. He turned and started down the stairs. The thunk of his shoes was the only sound. He didn’t hear James close the door, and knew his friend was standing there listening to him leave.

Out on the street, he looked up at the apartment building. If James was looking out one of the windows, he couldn’t see him. The sunlight was less illuminating, the shadows were thicker. Still, Isaiah raised his hand to wave. Then he turned, and started walking away.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to depict a deeply loving platonic relationship, especially between men since crying and physical intimacy are generally so taboo. Also COVID/life in 2021 feels...we're all just going through it, you know?


End file.
